PopPopPoPpoPpopcorn

Pages

Friday, January 27, 2017

I have seen a few memes, some with the hashtag #NaziPunchChallenge, referring to a quote by Hitler: "Only one thing could have stopped our movement - if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement." There have been some challenges as to whether this quote is real, and all the results on google seemed to imply that it is false. I did some more investigating, found the original quote, and this is a translation of a speech Hitler gave in 1933.

Some of the memes:

I saw the first one on facebook, and someone in the comments said it was untrue and that it fell under the category of "fake news." Another commenter pointed out that it's a translation and subject to the interpretation of the translator, then gave the quote in German (still all in the comments of facebook). I've studied German and traveled there several times and from the quote I saw (in the facebook comment) the translation is good. As the original poster explained, the word nucleus was not a word Hitler used but it was accurate. A good translation conveys the meaning behind the words as well as the words themselves, and this translator thought smashing the nucleus captured the meaning of Hitler's words.

I found some good information on a blog, Z ZONE (https://zuriz.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/smashing-the-nucleus/), and it turns out the quote has been thrown around for decades. The blog attributes it to a 1976 play and points out that a supposed original version (in German) is actually translated from English to German and bogus. The comments on the blog have a wealth of information and better translations than mine, but the important take-away is that this IS a quote from Hitler. It's interesting to note that the blog post is from 2013 and its discussion on liberal strategy is not related to the 2016 US election.

If you don't understand the old German letters I typed it out using my American keyboard so there are no umlauts or eszets, but this will allow you to cut and paste into google translate and make your own decision. You can see that some of the words are not correct, or incorrectly translated by google within the context, but the main point is there.

Friday, October 30, 2015

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who believe that centuries of being treated as subhuman is some kind of conspiracy by people of color so that in the 21st century a disproportionate number can live in *glamorous* section 8 housing on food stamps, and people willing to listen to cries for help from our fellow human beings who are being mistreated and executed at the hands of the police. That's my thought for the day.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Here's a list of articles I've been bookmarking for a couple of years now under the heading "Teaching for Equality." I compiled these with high school students in mind, but I'm sure they can be used for students of all ages.

Friday, February 27, 2015

Why am I so sad Leonard Nimoy has died? Forget about the extended lifespan of Vulcans, or anything to do with his character Spock. Um, that's hard to do. I've read one of his books and know he's worked in theater and directing and done a lot of behind-the-scenes kinds of things, but I think I somehow transferred all of the good things that Star Trek envisioned about the future onto Nimoy. Shatner was a philanderer, as evidenced by some of the "blooper reels" from the original Trek. They fall into two categories: 1. people running into doors because they didn't open properly and 2. Shatner or Kelley ruins the shot by blatantly groping one of the female guest stars. Maybe Nimoy did it too, but if I've seen it on video I've blocked that out.

Here's a youtube playlist with Trek bloopers. The quality isn't great on most of them and to be honest I lost patience trying to find clips that show women getting molested behind the scenes at Trek. There's one of De and Majel Barrett in this first clip, but there are plenty more out there.

Maybe it was because Nimoy always seemed to appreciate his fans. I know he tried to distance himself from Spock for a while, but he wanted to explore other dramatic possibilities. He did not want to be typecast as an unfeeling, emotionless alien in all his roles, after all. I recently saw an episode of Columbo where he played a surgeon who never lost his cool - except for once when he tried to destroy a key piece of evidence while having an emotional outburst. Columbo busted him because his behavior was so out of character.

I knew that he was struggling with COPD, but he's a celebrity. I saw on twitter or facebook that he had gone into the hospital a few days ago. I thought they had special machines that could cure anything, but only celebrities could afford them. And he doesn't look as old as they made Spock in the new movie, so naturally he can't die until he looks older than in a movie.

One of my favorite things he did was the introduction and sound test at the Mugar Omni Theater at the Museum of Science in Boston. In this video you can see it a little bit, but it's this new version where a recording of an over-excited museum employee supposedly interacts with Nimoy. Those of us who remember the original know they just took his version and chopped it up because kids today can't pay attention to life unless it's constantly like a carnival.

I haven't deluded myself into thinking he transferred his katra to someone before he died or anything like that. But I do think we should freeze him or vitrify him or whatever it is they're doing to allow people to be restored in the future. Maybe he should be put on one of those sleeper ships like in "Space Seed."

There was something about Leonard Nimoy that I think every Trekkie or Trekker loved. I don't think I've met anyone who didn't like Spock or Nimoy. He was the lynchpin that kept the whole franchise together (minus little things like DS9 Voyager and Enterprise). Groundbreaking in TOS, brilliant in TNG, and his character made the whole reboot possible.

"Peace and long life" begins the Vulcan greeting that everyone can quote the response to: "live long and prosper." It's a hashtag now too. So #LLAP Leonard Nimoy, it's so cliched now but it wouldn't be right for me to finish with anything other than Kirk's eulogy to Spock:

Thursday, January 23, 2014

A family in Dora, Alabama tried to clean up toilet paper local teens had thrown on their house and ended up burning down the house. There was paper in a tree outside the house and they thought lighting the paper on fire would be a good way to finish the cleanup, until the fire spread to the dry grass below. It soon made its way to the house and burned the whole house down. Fortunately no one was hurt, but sometimes shortcuts can really backfire.

Monday, January 20, 2014

So everyone is going crazy for the Which Star Wars Character Are You? quiz on facebook, and I had to put my own spin on it. I've always loved gonk droids, and decided myself that I would like to be a gonk droid. Here's what I came up with. Keep in mind I don't have photoshop, so this was made using preview.